


(Not Entirely) Human

by A_A_Inc



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:41:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_A_Inc/pseuds/A_A_Inc
Summary: Dex is a Faerie. He's been around for a long time, and he knows a lot. He has some trouble keeping with the times sometimes, but he learns quickly, especially here at Samwell. His team is full of magical beings like himself. The only problem? Derek is human.





	(Not Entirely) Human

Dex entered the Haus, immediately feeling the comforting weight of Bitty’s magic settle around his shoulders like a blanket. He didn’t bother calling out, knowing Bitty knew he was there. He drifted, exhausted, towards the kitchen. “Bits, save me from my sorrows with pie,” he groaned.

Bitty was baking away when Dex collapsed into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Bitty patted him on the back of the head.

“Is it that Historical Theology class again, Dex?” He nodded into his arms on the table.

“What is it this time?”

Dex sighed, lifting his head.

“Okay, so remember that group project I was telling you about?” Bitty nodded in affirmation, utensils flying around the kitchen behind him, still baking. “So Nurse and Jonathan were talking about the mythology of the Celtic peoples, y’know, because that’s what the class is about, and  _ our _ project is specifically about Irish mythos, which was Nurse’s idea, by the way.  _ I _ wanted to do the Finns, but he was blathering on about something totally stupid, one of the little stories that gets blown way out of proportion because it was written down so it wouldn’t be fucking  _ forgotten _ , because everybody knew the important stories, and I correct him on  _ one little thing _ , that it  _ wasn’t _ okay at the time to let a woman be armed, and that it was a terrible idea to do it, and he just went off on me! It wasn’t even relevant! Women can do whatever the fuck they want! Besides, gender is such a flimsy human concept anyways. And it was a terrible idea to give her a weapon because he knew she wanted him dead.”

He grumbled, pouting, “Besides, that wasn’t even what happened. She stole the knife to begin with.”

Bitty laughed, placing a slice of his favorite pie down in front of him. “Dex, human history is wishy-washy anyways. Your memory will always be sharper than our puny mortal books.” Dex nodded, stuffing his face with pie. Bitty was about to speak again when the door to the Haus slammed open. Bitty quickly had the dishes all set themselves down and stop doing things by themselves. Dex slumped back in his chair, eating his pie slowly, figuring that could only mean one thing. Nursey was back.

 

Derek Nurse walked into the Haus and took a deep breath, instantly feeling calmer and warmer. The Haus tended to do that for him. He walked into the kitchen. “Oh. Hey, Dex.”

Dex ignored him. Typical. He tended to do that after their shared Historical Theology class. Derek grabbed himself a plate and loaded a slice of pie onto it. He looked around the kitchen. “Hey, Bits. You stress baking?”

Bitty nodded sagely. “When am I not these days. It’s finals.”

Nursey nodded. “Figures.”

He looked at Dex, who was slumped back in his chair, slowly eating a slice of pie.

“Yo, chill, Dex. You know that Shitty would have had the same reaction,”

Dex shifted in his seat, muttering something quietly, but continued to frost Nursey out, as he’d been doing since midway through class. Shitty would not, in fact, have corrected Dex on that. He would have known that Dex was speaking from memory, not from opinion. He just… knew those things. Come to think of it, Shitty knew a lot that he shouldn’t have known, about everyone. He knew when Lardo needed to chill with Jack, pun intended, and when Jack needed Lardo nearby to defrost whatever started freezing around him, and when Holster needed to go sit in the forest with Ransom, or when Bitty needed to go do… whatever it was that Bitty did when he needed to let out some energy. But Shitty was  _ definitely _ 100% human. His family was entirely non-magical.

Dex stood abruptly. “Thanks for the pie, Bits. I’m gonna go hang out on the reading room, please don’t bother me?” He made eyes at Bitty, hoping he would understand that he specifically didn’t want Nursey to bother him. Bitty, bless him, nodded in understanding.

Dex knocked on Shitty’s door frame. His door was already open, just as it had been last time that Dex had wanted to talk to him, and every time before that.

“Come on in, brah. You know you don’t have to knock.”

Dex nodded. “I know. It’s just how I grew up. Speaking of,” he closed the door behind him. “Nursey was getting on my ass today about some misunderstanding about something I said, and he said that you would have agreed with him, but I know you wouldn’t have, because you know about all the magic and stuff, but I just don’t get… How. You’re entirely human, and your family is all entirely human, so how do you know?”

Shitty laughed. “I knew you’d ask eventually, brah. I didn’t think you’d hold off this long. You bein’ Fae and Knowing all that shit, I thought you’d ask the second you got here.”

He leaned back against his headboard, and gestured for dex to sit down in his desk chair.

“My family’s Gifted. Some old God gave one of my ancestors The Gift, and it’s sorta mind reading? Not really. Everyone’s got a visible aura, and like, a feeling, so is like, super-empathy, and I can manipulate mine, and we all feel each others auras, y’know?” Dex nodded.

“But, like every gift, it comes with a catch. If you use your Gift selfishly or for evil, it loses its power. It’s all gradual, so that you don’t really notice until one day, you can’t really use it anymore, but it gives you time to get back on the right track. My grandparents are super bitter because I still have my power because I’m not an asshole, but they lost theirs to their greed.”

Dex whistled. “Aye, those are some shite relatives.”

Dex thought for a moment. “So you have Sight, then. That’s why you can tell when someone’s human.” Shitty nodded, and they sat in silence for a moment, Dex staring thoughtfully at him for a moment, and Shitty could feel him looking into his soul.

“You’re a good one, Shits. You’ve got good coming your way, for all the good you do. The universe is always balanced, whether you know it or not.” He shook himself, tearing his Sight away from the fabric of the universe surrounding Shitty.

Dex stood, calmer than he had been before. Shitty smiled. “Brah, this is the calmest I’ve ever seen your aura. It’s, like, mad pretty.” Dex gave him a smile. “And your soul seems settled and content to see it.”

Dex fell back into the fully human plane and blinked, the image of Shitty’s soul imprinted in his memory. He walked out of the room, and down the stairs, waving to Bitty, his eyes gliding past Nursey as he left the Haus.

 

He walked into Annie’s, brushing past someone. “Yo, sorry bro.” Dex took in the person standing there. “Johnson, right? Ex-goalie?” 

Johnson nodded. “Dex, man. The author wants me to tell you that what you’re looking for isn’t in Annie’s. They’re using me as a plot device to get you to go talk to Lards. Get her two large coffees and a blueberry muffin. It’s necessary. That art class…” He shook his head, looking through the fourth wall to read ahead to see how Lardo’s dealing with that class-not well. ”It’s not good. Anyways, watch your step, and go bring those coffees to the door and talk. Now, I’ve held you up for long enough, go.”

Dex blinked, confused. Johnson got stranger every time the author wrote him in. What?

He shook his head. He’d been given the advice by Bits that if he ever met Johnson, just to do what he said. Something about how he “just knew stuff”.

He followed Johnson’s advice, buying the two coffees and the muffin, and a small coffee and a croissant for himself. If he hadn’t been watching his step, he would have tripped and fallen on the tree root when he crossed the grass to take a shortcut. He was only standing outside the building for a moment when art students began pouring out. The door closed, and then a few seconds later slammed open, and Lardo stormed out.

“GOD  _ DAMNIT! _ ”

Smoke was  _ literally _ coming out of her ears.

Dex held the muffin towards her silently. The smoke lessened as she scarfed it down. He handed her the first coffee, as they walked slowly towards the Haus. The smoke had stopped by the time she’d finished the first coffee, and she looked exhausted. She always did, after burning out like that. He handed her the other coffee, and she took it gratefully, shivering. She nodded over to a bench, and they sat down. Dex took his jacket and threw it around her shoulders, putting his arm over it and pulling her into his side, raising his body temperature a few degrees. She sipped at the coffee until she had enough energy to deal with speaking.

“Thanks,” She said, her voice shaking. Dex gave her a side hug in response, tightening his grip on her shoulder for a moment. They sat while Lardo absorbed the caffeine in her veins.

“So, what do you need me for, Poindexter?” She asked finally.

He smiled. “Didn’t know you could tell. I need advice. Nursey, he’s human, you know? He thinks my whole deal is being conservative and shit, not ignorant and ancient. He got all steamed up during that theology class we’re taking.”

Lardo nodded. “I don’t suppose there’s really a way to tell him, is there.”

Dex shook his head. “I’m not even sure it’s a good idea. He could out the team, get us all in major trouble.”

Lardo thought. “I don’t think he would. He’s fanciful, to be sure. He’s a  _ poet. _ Don’t you Faeries have a thing about poets and the Fae Courts?”

He shrugged. “It’s the Gardens, not the Courts themselves. The Courts are beings, not places. Are you suggesting that I fuck with his dreams without his consent on a roadie or something? Shits would be disappointed.”

Shitty, it turned out, thought it was a brilliant solution, once Dex explained how Dreamwalking worked. “Hey, it won’t screw up his mind, and you’re not actually invading his privacy, right? You’re just making a suggestion.”

So on the next roadie, when Nursey fell asleep on the window, Dex made the gentle suggestion to his sleeping mind, and Nursey’s true inner poet took it and ran with it, entering the Garden.

That night, Dex did it again, in the hotel room, and again, Nursey took the suggestion happily. Dex closed his eyes, and relaxed his essence into the Faerie Dream Realm. He conjured the door to Nursey’s dream in front of him, and knocked gently. “Nurse? It’s me, Dex. Can I come in?” He felt confusion radiate from the other side of the door. “Sure, man. How’d that door even get in here, that's so weird!”

Dex felt the lock relax out of existence easily, and he was able to open the door almost without touching it. He was awed by the visceral show of trust.

Nursey- no-  _ Derek _ was sitting in the grass under a tree, writing in a beat up old notebook. “This place is  _ rad _ , bruh.” Dex smiled. The Gardens were reacting well to Derek, barely even changing to accommodate his preferences. Really, all Derek had wanted them to do was be real, so they had lost their Faerie shimmer and were more suited for human eyes.

Derek paused in his writing, putting his pencil in his book and closing it. “Too bad what I wrote won’t be real when I wake up.” He looked at Dex. “Why do you look different, Dex?” Dex checked his ears, making sure they hadn’t pointed unconsciously from being home. They hadn’t. “Huh?”

Derek gestured to him. “You’re so… Shiny.” 

Dex flushed. “What makes you think you’re dreaming?”

Derek stared into the Garden for a moment. “I don’t know how I got here, that always happens in dreams, and I’ve always been a lucid dreamer. Everything that I know to be true is so far away, so fuzzy.”

Dex looked at him, taking in Derek’s expression.

“My dreams usually happen in the city, though. This is new. I’ve never been anywhere like this in real life.”

Dex took a deep breath, staring deeply into the Garden to avoid meeting Derek’s eyes. “I can’t dream. It’s not in my Nature. I can do so many other things, but I can’t dream.”

He could feel Derek studying him.

Dex couldn’t stand it anymore, he reached out for help, drawing Lardo and Shitty towards the Garden, like they’d decided to do once he’d gotten Derek at ease. Two more doors appeared, next to Dex’s open one. Lardo knocked first.

“Yo, Nurse! Open up!” Derek beamed, and Lardo’s door clicked, unlocking. It acted like a normal door, not like Dex’s. Shitty was let in a moment later.

They sat in a circle, and Shitty started talking. “Have any of you ever thought about if magic was real?”

Lardo nodded. “Totes, brah.”

Derek nodded solemnly. “If magic were real, it would be so lit. There are so many cool old stories and myths.”

Dex waited, looking off into the distant past, and spoke softly. “All the stories are true.”

“Maybe not in their entirety, but they’ve all got to be based on something.”

Derek looked at him, surprised. “I thought you would have said something about science.”

Shitty leaned forwards, putting his Serious Talk face on. “Derek Nurse. This is an intervention.”

Lardo put on her sunglasses. “You need to know something before it tears this team apart.”

Derek looked startled.

Dex took a deep breath. “Should I reveal the Truth now, Shitty?”

Derek looked confused. “Huh? What do you mean, the truth? What’s going on?”

The fabric of the dream began to ripple, and fear and darkness clouded Derek’s mind. Dex reacted instinctively to the unstableness of the dream, reaching down and placing his palms firmly on the ground, sending waves of calming energy. Derek looked surprised.

“Whoa, dude. What did you do?”

Dex shrugged noncommittally. He met Shitty’s eyes, still waiting for a confirmation, which he got in the form of a slow nod. Dex ran his hands through his hair, exhaling anxiously. As he did so, his hair grew out a bit, and his appearance changed a little. His ears, which had always seemed to be too big and stuck out, became pointed, with tons of earrings in them. His clothes melted and changed into a finely woven tunic, covered in intricate embroidery which shifted and moved, seeming to portray stories.

Suddenly, the world around them changed, the gardens returning to their natural state in the presence of a Faerie. Like a ghost, a dragon was sitting behind Lardo, its eyes with her same intense feeling. Shitty, too, changed slightly, a faintly glowing mist appearing around him, and his eyes shimmered iridescently.

The gardens themselves were gorgeous, almost preening, shining and splendid with magic. Even Derek wasn’t magic-free. A small tendril of Bitty’s magic wove its way around him, checking up on him to be sure he was ok. Jack’s signature frosty care was there, too, clinging to Derek. Each of their teammates had left their mark on him, their magic lingering on him, checking up on him, keeping him safe. Lardo’s golden dusting of care matched Shitty’s deep blue stain. Dex had left his mark, too. Derek was bathed from head to toe in love from all around him, a mural of magic, even when he himself had none.

Derek looked at his skin in awe. “What is this?”

Dex looked at him fondly. “Care, love, friendship. Magic leaves its mark.” Dex touched his upper arm thoughtfully. He knew that in this form he, too, was covered in the marks of his teammates, but his showed up differently than Derek’s.

Derek’s head snapped to look at him. “Magic? It’s real?”

Dex raised an eyebrow. He gestured around him, at the gardens.

Derek shook his head. “This is a dream, man. There’s no way a place like this really exists.”

Dex thought for a moment. “I mean, it does exist. It’s not exactly a where, per say, but it’s real. Derek, talk to me tomorrow, alright?”

Shitty nodded. “Yeah, bruh, talk to your team. We all know shit. Just ask.”

Dex started to dissolve the dream. First he, Shitty, and Lardo became blurry, then disappeared. He sat up in the bed he’d been laying in. He suggested to Derek’s mind a dreamless sleep, and then lay down and meditated until his alarm went off.


End file.
